


The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me

by obirain



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (no graphic content), Angst, Arguing, Depression, Description of a mild panic attack, Description of mild depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I really did, I think that's it????, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Nudity, Making Up, Other, Panic Attacks, Swearing, a dream sequence with mildly unsettling imagery, blood mention, but i am a girl and i know the gn reader scews more towards the feminine, but i am so. fucking aspec skfjdakfjda, death mention, enjoy, gender neutral reader, i tried to write something even a little bit sexy y'all, if u squint, sorry m8s, spicy fluff to angst to fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29229885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obirain/pseuds/obirain
Summary: You’ve dedicated your life to beauty, to color, to the fantasy of life. And then there’s Rex: gentle, steadfast, battle-hardened Rex. You respect it, you think you’ve accepted it. But sometimes it’s just too much to bear—and the differences in the lives you lead come to a head.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex/Reader, CT-7567 | Rex/You, Captain Rex/Artist!Reader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22





	The Lovers, the Dreamers, and Me

It's stormy over Coruscant and almost quiet. On days like these air traffic's limited: much less honking, shouting, occasional crashing. But in its place is the thunder, of course, and the wind and the rain and the bristles on canvas, and the snoring from the man behind you.

He got back late. He always does, dead on his feet and covered in bruises. _I'm fine,_ he insisted. _Kix patched me up. No matter. Don't worry._ But you worried anyway. You always do. He showered and settled into your creaky pull-out couch; you traced the blooms of purple and black and the nicks too small for bandages, and he was gone within seconds. But you lay awake: watching the creases in his forehead fade and the rain clouds roll in over the city. Clouds like this are a rarity here. They bewitch your mind, filling it up with strange images... Lit from below by the ecumenopolis, they gathered themselves into coils and shapes that lent themselves phantasmagoric to your tired eyes. Broad, inhuman faces; wings like claws and wings like teeth; wings of beauty slipping away...

So here you are next morning before your easel, before the window. Beyond you, a masterpiece in its own right: plumes of black and purple and indigo-gray towering over the skyscrapers, lightning flashing gold and silver and violet. You forget, sometimes, what Light can do when the air is right. You forget how it fills the clouds like lanterns, or sprawls like the fingers of ancient, instant, skeletal gods. It floodlights your studio apartment and shakes the whole city with a wall-shattering _CRRAAAAACK._

You flinch. Not from fear. It's the _gasp._ Almost louder than the thunder and infinitely worse to your ears. It's the sound of shifting sheets and newly labored breaths. Your heart aches; your throat constricts. You set your brush on your easel and your pallet on your stool.

"Just the thunder, Rex."

He sits bolt upright on the low mattress, panting harder than if he'd just run a mile. Lightning flashes against his face and highlights the beads of sweat already at his brow. You catch them on your thumb and he leans into your touch, closing his eyes. 

"'M sorry," he mumbles. 

"Shh. Go back to sleep." You kiss his forehead and pull away. 

"What time is it?"

"Late."

"Not too late, I hope. Wouldn't want to sleep through all my leave."

You shake together and mix another shade of blue. He doesn't leave again until Wednesday. You don't mention it.

"You could use the extra rest," you hum. "No, not too late. It's midmorning, I think. Hard to say."

"Mhm."

The bed groans—those springs have been broken for a year and a half—and is silent; you hear heavy footfalls behind you. Warm, strong, bare arms wrap around your waist. Rex buries his face in your neck, kissing along your shoulder, searing your skin, tugging at your oversized black shirt.

"Is this mine?"

"You left it here months ago."

"And you turned it into a painting shirt?"

"You never asked for it back."

His head drops to your shoulder, breathing deep. His arms tighten around your waist; his fingers trace up and down the textured flecks of paint and feel like butterfly wings against your skin. 

"'S better on you, anyway. Come back to bed."

"In a minute, Rex."

He grumbles something incoherent; you don't bother asking what he meant. You only laugh and kiss him lightly at the corner of his mouth. "Just a little bit more."

The warmth pulls away. The mattress groans again under his weight. 

"What's that?"

"It's a thunderstorm, Rex."

"I _know._ I meant that yellow. In your background."

It takes you a moment—too long—to notice the burst of white and yellow through the whirlpool of blues. Not lightning in the clouds but long, bold, bright rays breaking through the horizon. You shrug. 

"Sunrise, sunset. Doesn't matter."

"No sunrise out there."

"Then feel free to make your own."

"And your window faces North—"

"Oh, _go to bed,"_ you grumble as you add still more yellow to the center. A little more light. Just a little—

"Where were you this time?"

"Felucia. Again. I'm getting sick of it."

"That's the one with the flowers, isn't it?"

"Giant, glow-in-the-dark ones, yes." You can hear the smirk in his voice, but you don't engage.

"It sounds beautiful."

"Sure it is, when it's not crawling with Seppies. They've all but destroyed the place."

And Republic gunnery can't be helping things, either, but you don't say that. Your hand stills. "There's nowhere on the whole planet you could go to see the flowers as they are? Somewhere that's not a warzone?"

"Well, I... I guess there is, but that's not where we end up."

"I don't like that for you," you say firmly, resuming your brushwork. 

"It's the job, sweetheart."

You don't like that job for him, either. You look at the canvas and sigh; it's time to put away your paints.

"You done? The whole bottom half's missing."

You gather your brushes into a cup of turpentine in the kitchen, trying to ignore the jaig eyes on the table. They're turned right towards you as you clean, beautiful and strange and powerful. "Not yet. The paint needs to dry. Can't... I can't do anything about it."

If there's a wistful note in your voice, Rex doesn't notice it. "I don't know how you have the patience for it."

"Neither do I," you mumble. More to yourself than anything. But when you turn around, you can't deny yourself a small smile. Rex is leaned back in bed, an arm beneath his head, gazing at you with a sleepy but contented smile. He's broad, bare-chested, uncovered by the thin bed sheets, and his dark eyes twinkle with mischief. Your face heats up. You know he's caught you staring.

"Don't look at me like that," you tell him sternly, smile still breaking through. 

"How should I, then?"

You sit on your side of the bed, the one closest to the window, and ignore the creaky springs as much as you can as your hand trails lightly down his chest. His skin runs hot beneath you. 

"Not at all, really. I'd rather you go to sleep."

He pulls you by the waist, tugging at your shirt until you're half on top of him, until your lips meet. You brace himself on his shoulders. The muscles flex beneath your fingers, solid and steady from years of bearing his armor, while he kisses you with everything he has. His hands dig into your waist hard enough to leave bruises; you squirm in his grasp. The vibrations from his chest to yours are enough to make you shiver as he groans into your mouth. 

"Sounds like an awful waste of a weekend off," he pants when you pull away. You rest your head in the crook of his neck. The warmth almost overwhelms you. It takes you to an other-place far away; it grounds you as you nip the column of his throat.

"I want you at your best for when you have to leave... well-rested... just in case."

Rex sighs and lifts you off of him, lying you both on your sides. He could manhandle you easily and you're floored—again and again—at the gentleness with which he cradles you. Directly across from you now he can hold your gaze more steadily, lightning flickering against his cheekbones around the shadow you cast. The thunder rolls still. 

"I know you don't like it. But orders are orders. This is what we're made for.

You bite your tongue. _No, no, no! No one's_ made _for this. No one's made for a thousand days of war and clouds of smoke, cannons, gunfire, the decimation of whatever is good. No one's made to bear the wounds and scars of a Republic divided on innocent, unblemished skin._ And damned if you know for sure what you are! but—Maker—he's wrong. He's _wrong—_

"Okay," you whisper. Your fingers dance across his side. "But... damn it, Rex, look up at the sky once in a while. Look at the sun. At the flowers. Once in a while."

"Sure thing, sweetheart."

"I mean it, _Captain."_ You run your nails through his close-cropped hair. "I want you to have at least _one_ good memory to look back on."

"Mhm."

Without warning he pushes you down on your back and kisses you again until you're both breathless. When he pulls away, it's only an inch—enough to let his eyes, darkened and dilated, rake down your face and neck below. A hand works its way beneath his old shirt. 

"Oh, believe me, _sweetheart._ I intend to."

* * *

Sometime in the very early morning the clouds broke; they're still breaking now. Rex is still asleep and almost all on top of you: half settled between your legs, his head nested in the crook of your neck, a heavy arm looped around your waist. You've managed to shift away just enough to _breathe,_ but you're not going any further. So you continue to lie quietly. One hand draws figure eights in his hair and the other stretches out towards the closed window where the clouds whisper their silent hellos.

 _Strange._ Strange that among such large swathes of purple-gray sky, the little wisps that seem to float just feet away still burn like tongues of fire in all manner of summer and autumn. They are far, so far from you, but you imagine even so. Stretching, stretching—as if in a dream—until your fingertips graze the mist... It would be cool to the touch, freezing perhaps, and your fingers stained red and gold. Not water droplets but evaporated paint collecting on your skin, on bristles, too—if you could just open the window and stand on the sill, balanced on your toes, raising your longest brush into the sky.

How _vivid_ would your paintings be, dyed with the clouds themselves? It's worth it though you struggle and strain, though you may fall. So much more tangible. So much more _real_ than water and fire and canvas and flesh—

With the softest sigh, Rex breaks the spell. Hot air fans across your bare chest; his arm curls around you more tightly; his fingers begin to dig into your waist. You feel his lips against your neck and his tongue against the marks he left there yesterday. 

"Morning." His voice is coarse and heavy with sleep.

"Mm."

"Time is it?"

"I don't know."

He's content at that, for the moment. Content to lie further, content to trace the blooms across your neck and chest. And you're content to lie still, content to run your fingers through his hair and watch the candle-flames outside give way to a golden morning in the East. The rays shine through to your quiet room and break through the lonely, sleepy shades of purple. 

"Kriffin' hells," Rex mutters into your skin.

"What?"

He lies on his elbow a little above you. His other hand strokes up and down your side. _"You... are... a vision."_

You pull his head down to yours. Or maybe he lowers to kiss you himself; you truly can't tell. His hand encircles your neck like he's cradling a rose in full bloom, pulling it to his nose; it's warm and large and perfectly shaped to hold your head against his.

"Rex," you murmur against his lips.

"Mm?"

"Did you feel it, when the rain stopped?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean—"

A high-pitched beeping cuts you off. Rex gives you a look—one you can't exactly read—, hauls himself off of you, and wraps one of the top blankets around his waist. The beeping comes from his pile of belongings on the kitchen table.

(You shouldn't call it a _pile._ It's immaculately organized, much more than the painting shirts and whatever other clothes—you don't even know—you have hanging over the wooden chair. No matter how tired he is when he shows up at your doorstep, Rex _always_ takes the time to arrange his things properly even if you find neither rhyme nor reason in it. It's the military training, you suppose.)

From somewhere near the top of the pile—stack— _assembly,_ he pulls out his comlink. His back straightens.

"Yes, sir."

_"Rex, where are you?"_

Rex looks at you from the corner of his eye. You probably shouldn't be hearing this, whatever it is, but there aren't exactly a lot of places he can go.

"Off-base, sir."

_"Off-base? What the hell are you doing off-base?"_

"My apologies, sir. It's our leave."

_"I'm sorry about that, Rex, but I need you back here as soon as possible. We're an emergency call to Naboo; the Queen's worried about another invasion attempt."_

"Sir, yes sir." Rex's face hardens. You sit up, pulling the sheet around you, and stare at him. The comlink's light dies; immediately he begins to pull on his blacks like a machine.

"Who was that?"

"That was General Skywalker," he replies, his back to you. "501st's being sent to Naboo."

"I heard _that,"_ you say quietly. You wait for him to face you again, but he doesn't—he doesn't speak again, either.

"So that's it, then?"

"Hm?"

"You're leaving. Just like that."

"Yep."

You look back out the window, hands flexing in the sheets. "You're supposed to have two more days. This is official leave time, isn't it?"

"Orders are orders." He's putting his armor on now and he still won't look at you. You bite your tongue, almost hard enough to draw blood but not quite, watching the still-shifting clouds. 

"It's not right."

"It is what it is. Me and my brothers, it's what we're here to do."

"It's not though, is it?"

You're surprised to hear you've spoken it aloud. Even more surprised that you've raised your voice—just a fraction of a degree, but enough. Rex finally turns around. You still can't read his face. But it's towards you now and you've spoken your mind. There's nothing else for it. 

"I'm afraid I don't catch your meaning."

"I _mean—"_ You swing your legs off the bedside and pull yesterday's shirt over your head. "—that it's something you _do,_ not something you're here to do. There's a difference."

"Is there, now?"

"People aren't just made for war and they're not just made for the government's fickle interests. No one's _born_ a lamb to the slaughter."

He chuckles. You'd be hard-pressed to find any humor in it. "Very nat-born of you to say."

"I'm sorry?"

"My apologies. I _mean_ that only nat-borns think that way. Things are different for clones."

"But they shouldn't—"

"Shouldn't _what?_ Can you even hear yourself?" You flinch at the harshness in his voice. _"Clones aren't born._ We're _created._ And even if we had been, what are we supposed to do? Rebel? Send the Chancellor a polite letter? There's over a million of us. We've got the group to think about."

You clench your fists until you feel your nails cut into your skin. Your face burns; your blood boils. "That doesn't mean you don't deserve better."

"Well," he laughs again, "when you figure out a way to end the war, and all wars forever, until _you_ feel more comfortable, let us know. We'll take you right to the Senate; I'm sure they'd love to hear."

"It's _not_ just me—"

But your voice betrays you. It's much too thick and your throat tightens with welling tears until you can hardly breathe. 

"I just... _hate this for you,_ Rex."

"I know."

In full armor now—though helmetless—his footsteps are heavier than ever on the thin floor. His gloved hand is gentle but cold when he takes you by the chin. There's something in his expression, something soft, that reminds you of the Rex who woke up on top of you this morning. But it's not quite him. This is the Captain. A CO of the GAR who looks at you now with hardened eyes. 

"I _know,_ but you've got to try and understand. You're—" He shakes his head with a deflated sigh. "You're _soft,_ sweetheart. Good soft. But maybe too soft."

You pull yourself from his grasp. He's close enough, still, to see the beads that cling to your lashes. You hate crying in front of him. And you flat out _refuse_ to cry before the Captain.

"They don't care," you choke. Your head throbs. "They don't care if you die."

"Some of them would. But they're not meant to. Try to understand."

You look away in silence, back to the clouds. They're almost gone now. Rex clears his throat. 

"I'll be back in a few weeks..." He squeezes your arm. "Don't go anywhere while I'm gone."

You don't know how to respond, and you don't. You don't even look back at him, though you feel him let go—hear his heavy footsteps back across the room, the door opening, the door shutting. Footsteps down the hall. And silence.

It's a long time you stand there. Long enough for the morning to yield to full and freshened day. And when you force yourself to sit you _gasp,_ and your heart races. _It's the mattress. You need to replace it. You should have replaced it by now._ But all you can do at this all but inextant moment is sit still. You don't want the springs to shriek again. 

And something inside you spreads like slow poison, changing your blood to lead and your cells and your muscles to mercurial moonlight. _You should eat,_ a distant voice calls to you through the mist. _Drink some water. Move, at least._ But you'll have to get up and you want to get up but you're afraid, afraid of the bed groaning. So you sit still, so still you fall asleep without intending to. And when you wake up golden light pours through the window into your kitchen and the far corner. This time, though, it's towards the right and now the left. _It's sunset,_ the voice returns. You sit up. The springs creak and there's a crick in your neck; it's autumn outside but inside you're dreadfully hot and almost sticky. This is why you don't take naps in the middle of the day. 

But at least your limbs will move again. You pull yourself out of bed, drift aimlessly to the window, unlock it with numbed fingers. The air is cooler but only just—that heavy, humid cool in the days before and after a storm. But with the air the daily pandemonium: engines and horns and shouts in every pitch and timbre that crush your ears and fumigate every nook and corner, the pockets of air in the sheets on your bed, the air between your shirt and your skin. 

"Come on, move!"

"Out of the way!"

"Never taking this lane again; like it _never_ ends—"

 _Out of the way. Out of the way._ The words echo in your brain. You can't get them out. Your heart races but your lungs have quit you; a millstone hangs around your neck and resin in your diaphragm. The air, the air—it's not coming. If not for the easel you might have collapsed: you clutch it like a vice, and the wood feels grainy under your hands... _Splinters. You'll get splinters. You'll get splinters if you grip too hard, too long, and you can't get them out. So coarse—_

And then that canvas! Fuzzy corners, blended colors, dim and muted, swirled and muddy, melting snow on early, strengthless daffodils. Chuck it. _Chuck it—_ somehow, somewhere out the window to the endless, noisome pit below, _the brushes, the paint, the easel—_ the very stolen shirt you wore—stolen! yes, you'd _stolen it—out the window. Out the window._

_Out._

_Out._

_Out._

But the easel stays put. The painting, too. Your hands still on the splintering wood, the millstone on your chest, sludge the paint, sludge in your veins, sludge your paralytic. 

And when the millstone lifts your lungs balloon with air; your hands release and slip away with just enough time, not a moment to spare, to make to to the bed before tears come in droves.

He shouldn't have gone. 

He shouldn't have gone.

He shouldn't have gone. 

You should have said goodbye.

 _And didn't you?_ Surely you said something. You must have. _You had to._ And what can you do with yourself? It's not like he'll be back tomorrow. Back next week. Back next year. Not for certain. At war for months, for years with no reprieve. Or maybe not. Maybe awaiting hasty burial, dead in a sunless field, where the remains of grass and flowers smoulder. Or maybe not. Maybe left a hundred years, dead in a sunless field, to feed the next generation of reeds.

No, _no—_ they don't leave brothers behind. Not if they can help it. They bury them with honor. They'd bury _him_ with honor. They'd say goodbye. But you didn't know how.

 _How can you do it?_ you asked him long ago. He'd just told you about the search-and-rescue missions that sometimes—too often—turned into body recoveries. And you'd shuddered at the portrait: searching and and recovering and burying a hundred men and a hundred of your own face. _I don't know how you do it._

"It's difficult work," he agreed gravely. "But we manage, all of us. Me and my brothers. No matter."

"I can't imagine. Or don't want to, maybe." You lay down on the grass, what felt like grass; it was green and almost blue beneath your head and soft as fleece. Rex sat beside you fully-armored, though helmetless. One of his hands stretches out towards yours, not quite touching. "Not just difficult work, but... soul-destroying, it would seem. Or you don't think so?"

"Well... I wouldn't know about that. We don't have the luxury of thinking like that."

"I wish you would," you hummed. The sky darkened. A star or two was showing. "It's only human."

"And only of a different sort," he countered. There was a smile in his voice, but a serious note, too. You didn't quite understand. So you continued, pointing:

"What are those?"

He looked up. Huge creatures with wings shaped like pterodactyls', vivid red and white and black like butterflies', wheeled above your heads like carrion birds, above the flowers tall as lamp posts. They swayed without a breeze; their broad leaves and broader petals glowed teal and magenta in the twilight and reflected off the bellies of the beasts. Or maybe the beasts glowed themselves. You couldn't... You couldn't tell—

"Those are the ——," Rex answered coolly.

"The what?"

"The ——."

You stared at him. _What was he saying?_ It was like he spoke to you through a pool of deep water, or through very thick glass. Far, far away. 

"Rex?"

His mouth was moving, forming words, but it came to you a garbled mess.

"Rex? _Rex, where are you?"_

He spoke still, pointing to the circling creatures. They seemed so much _closer_ now than they had just a moment ago, like the transports that sometimes brushed by your apartment... Every so often you glimpsed the rest of them through the thick foliage, so thick it fully canopied your grassy little clearing. But suddenly a creature poked its head through a skyscraper of a cerulean lily and much to your horror it was a _human_ face. But still so birdlike!—shiny black, convex eyes twice the size of dinner plates stared back at you over a beak-like nose, thinly stretched over with bloodless skin. Its mouth is large enough to devour you whole.

_"Rex—?"_

"Not to worry, sweetheart." 

_You worry anyway._ You hated not to understand him but _this_ is somehow worse, and when you turn around you find he's not even _there._ He's walked straight up to the creature without fear, mumbling something where its ears should be.

"That's a good girl, aren't ya?" He pats its neck. "Don't worry; she's with us. And she'll fly us back home if you'll hop on her back."

And now that you think of it, of course these creatures are part of the GAR. You've all but grown up with them outside your window.

But going home... Home's just around the corner, isn't it? Yes, it is; just behind that wall of daffodils. You walked from home to meet here with Rex; you remember somehow. But Rex is leaving on his carrion bird...

But you can run home! If you run, you can meet him there when he arrives. So you run, run home but the lane never ends. There are no corners to turn off into. Just a little more, just a little further ahead—that's the avenue you need. The enormous stems tower above you like skyscrapers and in the narrow gaps between them you catch snippets of home. Nothing so much as a door or a shingle but the painted blue and white that decorated its walls. And house-side of the foliage, a hawk flies low to the ground. It's paced with you, never ahead and never behind; perfectly silent, dark and indistinct, with a long tail.

You're running still. The lane never ends. You get flashes of home, and a hawk flies beside you. It's quiet and shadowy. You're running and running.

The lane never ends. A hawk flies beside you. It's getting dark out. The sun is setting. You're running. And then everything is _still._ Still so soon, still so _fully_ that you lurch and your heart skips a beat.

And then everything's so _bright._ Too bright... you left the curtains wide open, you realize. And the window, too. The morning air blows into your apartment. But it's not cold air. It must be late, very late morning. 

_Shit—_ you're probably late for work. And late by a good hour or two.

You roll onto your back; the sheets are cool against your neck. What's the point of rushing? It must be noon, or almost noon. How long were you asleep? It couldn't be as long as that... But you think and you think and you can't remember even waking up in the night, not even to close the window. But you _do_ remember—what a strange and awful dream. You close your eyes, not to sleep but to think.

Had you... _really_ said that to Rex? "Soul-destroying," you'd said. "Soul destroying work"— _what on earth had you meant by that? You can't just say that to people._ You couldn't have. It was a dream.

But—you _had._

You _had_ said that. Just in passing. It must have been months ago now, maybe a year, back when you'd first met him or a little after. But you'd been in a daylit diner with walls and booths and people—people of an ordinary size, people with ordinary features. And you'd said it so off-handedly! That's right, a casual conversation... And what did he say? ... You couldn't remember. Or had he said anything at all? Maybe not. Maybe he'd just continued to wolf down his food like he'd never see it again. Whatever he did, he couldn't have seemed particularly bothered. You would have remembered, _surely,_ as you lie on the old pull-out couch in the late morning.

And when you open your eyes the light remains; off and to the left your painting stands unfinished. _And of course it does, unless any creature flew to your window and carried it away in the night._ Noonday sunshine forms a pleasant halo while a shadow hangs over its surface. It makes the colors look so dull and faded. Not nearly so abhorrent as they had seemed last night; you're too tired, really, to hate it too much. Abhorrence is born of the fire within, and the fire's long rained out. The ashes smoulder and smoke and your lungs are heavy. There's just enough spark to heave a great sigh, turn back on your side, and fall asleep again. Maybe Rex will have beaten you home after all. 

But Rex doesn't come home that day.

You wake up next morning at dawn; your boss chides you for missing a Monday; the days move on and you along with them. You rise tired, you sleep tired. You do it all again. And in the day-to-day it's easier to eat, to move, to drink, and you find yourself firmly tethered again. The fire is gone and with it your fear; the night is over and the morning not begun. Now is the twilight and the working-hours: the colorless and the nameless and the painless. The memory of the carrion birds darkens. And Rex doesn't come home that week, nor the next.

Nor the next.

And the fragile autumn blue gives way to early winter. In the heart of Coruscant winter is mild, with the metal and concrete and exhaust from the pit. It's good, you think, that it's not so bitterly cold, else that might be too much to bear, good that you can still open the window without shivering. You like for the fresh air to blow in. _And what's winter on Naboo like? Or_ is _it winter? Might it not be spring, or high summer? ..._

And you think of the 501st in the spring and the lengthening days. Everything is waking up. Everything is new. 

But here the nights stretch on and on, like a snake from its coil; you leave and return to your studio without the sun. On these days you stand again at the window. Hundreds of thousands of man-made lights in every tint and shade imaginable—but they do little to cheer up the late afternoons. No lamp you light will suffice. And it's on such a day as this (a near-night, rather, and a Saturday) that you watch the sun set at four in the afternoon. 

It's the winter solstice, you believe; a coworker mentioned going out for drinks several days ago. No... no, that was only Friday. One day, then. Two thirds of a day. It doesn't matter. You've long lost track of time in the endless, twilit work day, and now the night is upon you again. 

In the corner are your paints and brushes. Your easel, your brushes, your abandoned canvas. The paint's been dried for weeks, and now a new layer of fine dust—the sun reaches it only rarely here and it's easier to forget. But the empty bottom half, two thirds, really, seems so _expansive_ —so much more so than when you'd first set it aside. You'd resevered the emptiness for the city before you and its discarnate, artificial light. But you've stared at them so long; all you want now is the kiss of the sun, a warmer summer wind, and the padding of grass and clover you've never felt beneath your feet. 

You move the easel back to its spot before the window; in the last real dying rays you mix together your paints. And you pull on the old, oversized blacks. The sleeves are cold against your skin. 

In your mind's eye, a field. Not a field, a meadow firmly beneath your grounded feet. Hills beyond or mountains, maybe—indigo beneath the storm above, veiny tracts of gold-lined lilac where the sunlight's broken through. Flowers in the foreground. Poppies red as pomegranites, daisies white, forget-me-nots scattered across the slopes. Would they really grow side by side? Do they bloom at the same time? ... You don't know, nor do you care. You paint them all the same. The storm sends a great wind to prepare its way, or to herald its departure. It blows their petals up and all around: an airborne current of blue and white and red. 

It's beautiful. Much more beautiful than here. But the canvas still isn't used up—not even the mountains behind suffice to fill the negative. And the meadow seems so terribly lonely. Stroke by stroke you create a frame, solid and steadfast.

 _You've heard Naboo is a beautiful place._ And you've seen pictures, too, of the lake country and its mountains all around and the palace at Theed with its high turquoise domes. And you imagine them now: they'd look like eyes, wouldn't they? Great blue eyes watching you and the sun and the stars, could you fly as a bird overhead...

_And you never looked back at him._

Your hand stills. That's right. You hadn't. And you resume.

_Fabric from fabric his hand slipped away. You felt it. You heard the footsteps. You heard the door. And you did not turn._

_A shuddering breath._ You grip your brush in your fist like a child holds a pen. You squeeze your eyes shut.

_When did Rex last look at you? You only remember from across the room, across the sky, across the valleys, the Captain with the hardened eyes._

You wash your new-sketched frame with titanium white and check the time on your datapad. Ten o'clock. You're not going to stop; you're not going to allow it another minute in that sunless corner. And you're not going to stop because it is what it is and you'll manage, _all of you,_ no matter.

And you sleep and eat and work and sleep again, and winter surrenders to spring. Longer days from longer nights; the sun shines and the air warms. Your apartment is made light again and clean. The painting is finished, varnished, and hung by your bedside. Morning is at hand.

* * *

It's early, very early Morning (and a very wet one, too) when you hear footsteps in the hall. The door opens, the door shuts; there are footsteps in the room—heavy yet soft, in a controlled sort of way—and then the silence. You've been washing your face in the bathroom before bed; you press your face against the door as your heart races. From the other side, you catch a broken sigh.

"Hello?"

You throw the door open a little too suddenly. _"Rex?"_

Rex stands still and at attention. His helmet tucked in the crook of his arm, he's straight and stiff as if he were speaking to his CO. But even in the dim orange light you can see the weary lines around his eyes. He won't quite meet your gaze.

"I'm sorry to wake you."

The five feet between you might as well be a chasm, bridgeless and bottomless and prone to slides. "You didn't. I just... I hadn't been expecting you."

"I know. I'm sorry."

He rubs the back of his head. You feel strongly that he's not angry with you. Just... _you don't know._

"Why don't you take all this off," you nod at his armor, speaking slowly, "and take a shower. Have you eaten?"

"Yes, sir."

You stare at him. His face crumbles, and he sighs. Your heart breaks.

"You're dead on your feet, Rex," you murmur. You take a step towards him to take his free hand; to your relief he doesn't back away. And now that you think of it, you don't know why you expected him to. "Let's get you some rest."

Rex nods and begins to take off his armor, mechanically and methodically. You go to pull out the bed and arange the sheets but sneak glances of him as he works. His cuirass first and then his cuisses, the greaves, the vambraces, the spaulders, and a dozen other plates you don't know what to call—stacked neatly atop each other like shells or reams of paper. His comlink fits gently in the curve of his gauntlet. Surrounding them all is his belt and finally his helmet. When he leaves for a five-minute shower, the jaig eyes remain and watch you carefully. They're a comfort to you.

When Rex comes out you're in the kitchen, setting the caf machine for just a few hours. You faintly hear him sit on the bed.

"When did you get back?"

"A few hours ago. What time is it now?"

"1:33."

"Hm. Sounds about right." He pauses. "You fixed the springs?"

"New bed, actually," you hum. "But the sheets are still the same."

He doesn't answer. And you're content to finish your chores, but the silence goes on, _much_ longer than you had expected or hoped for, while you set out two clean mugs for later. The ceramic on laminate grates on your ears. You'd ask how long he's here for, but not this late—this early, rather. He could leave in an hour for all you care: he's _here._ And that'll be enough for the moment.

But then the silence breaks _for real_ and when you turn around, it's worse than you could have imagined:

"What is this?"

Rex sits, bent over, on the bed with a full canvas in his hands. It's dim but you can't mistake the moody purples, the burst of yellow, the crop of blonde hair. Shit. _Shit. You should have put it away._ And he's taken it down from the wall! You could have put it away— _he was in the shower just a few minutes ago—_ and you hadn't even thought of it.

No matter. _No matter._ It's here and so is he. But your voice is quiet.

"It's a painting, Rex."

"I _know;_ I—I..." He shakes his head and seems to deflate. You flip of the kitchen lights and drift towards him slowly, your eyes readjusting to the softer orange of your bedside lamp. Slowly, slowly.

There in his hands is the painting.

That whirl of stormclouds, that sunshine breaking through, kissing the flowers and the hills and the valleys. But in the foreground, tall and broad and grounded, is the Captain himself. In full armor—though helmetless—he faces the mountains beyond. But he looks up: up towards the sun, up towards the rivulet of flower petals blowing softly overhead; one brushes against his gold-lit cheek. A butterfly—huge and bold and red and black—rests on his shoulder while his hand rests at his side, clutching a short bouquet of poppies and forget-me-knots. The colors are vivid, the composition sure: yes, it turned out well. Even if you're mortified that it's now in his hands. 

"Is this me?"

"That's you."

"It's... I..." Rex releases a shuddering breath. His hands grip the edges of the canvas as hard as they can without tearing it.

"It's lovely."

"Rex?"

He won't look at you. Decidedly. You reach a slow hand to his shoulder; he's shaking.

"Hey. _Hey—"_

You tug the painting from his grasp, propping it against the arm of the couch, and go to cover his hand with yours. But at _that_ moment he looks at you and to your horror there are tears in his eyes.

"Is this... Is this how you see me?"

You're quiet for a moment as you hold his gaze steadily. You'll feel tears pricking at your own eyes soon, no doubt. But you'll manage.

"Yes," you say finally. "And this is... how you _are,_ I think. But I can't really say that."

He nods, and nods, until it's not nodding at all but _shaking_ with deep, shaky breaths. You pull him into your arms, tightly against your chest. And Rex weeps.

It's a long time before either of you speak. Doubled-over as you are, stretching your arms as far as they'll go over his bare and bruised and bandaged back, his skin still damp from the shower—the water seeps into your nightshirt and you almost shiver. But he is an anchor to you and you to him—even as he weeps and you with him against the sound of the pouring rain. And when your tears dry and the outpour ebbs, you still hold him. His arms clutch at your waist; his face is buried in your chest. He mutters something you don't catch into the fabric.

"It's what?"

"It's you," he mumbles.

"Hm?"

 _"Soft._ You're... _so soft..."_

The words trail off. Fresh tears well in your eyes. "Rex—"

Your voice trembles and your head throbs. "Rex, I'm sorry—"

 _"No."_ He gathers your shirt in his fists, pulling himself impossibly closer. "Don't."

"But I didn't—didn't even—" Your throat constricts as the beginnings of a sob surge in your chest. 

_"I didn't even look at you."_

He doesn't say anything, though his arms grip you tighter.

"You shouldn't—" _You swallow, forcing the words out one by one._ "You deserve better, Rex. Better from me."

 _He's shaking again._

"Sweetheart—" Rex lifts his head and you're startled to see how red and swollen his eyes are, though yours probably look much the same. "You _can't."_

"But—"

"And you deserve better from me," he says firmly, hoarsely. "And I... I can't give it to you. That's just... how it is. But—" He takes your face in his hands, wiping your tears away even as his own still dry on his face. "—I _can_ keep coming back to you. If you'll still wait for me—"

He doesn't get to finish. You've thrown your arms around his neck, pressed your lips to his. Chapped and warm and salty with tears and he kisses you back like a man starved: all but devouring you, fixed beneath his hands. So much power there and _raw strength—_ it's what he was made for, after all. But he holds you so gently. He could break you in half in the blink of an eye and he _won't,_ not ever. It's not his way.

And not yours, either, to tear him apart.

"I promise you. Forever, forever..." you whisper, "... and I'll be better. Better to you, my love."

Rex mumbles your name against your lips. It's sugar-sweet, flower-fragrant on your tongue. Another kiss, an oath, a brand, and tongues of fire shared between your lungs; a love whispered and a current petal-soft behind your eyes. _I love you. I love you. I love you more. I promise._

When you turn off the lamp darkness settles in, though not the silence. You settle in, him on his side, you on yours; the curtains blow like streamers in the gentle, humid air of early spring, wafting through the open window beyond which shapes of blue and silver, red and gold shrink and stretch and die and light again. _It's lessened now,_ you think. 

One hand rests again in Rex's hair; the other lies towards the window where you've fixed your gaze. But Rex, using your stomach for a pillow, takes your outstretched hand in his and pulls it to his lips. And he keeps it there, squeezing tightly, while you trace figure eights against his scalp.

"Rough day, hm?"

"Something like that," he chuckles. The sound alone is fresher air to your soul than any that's ever blown in from the window. "Maybe a rough year. But I'll tell you tomorrow. Let's get some sleep."

You hum in response and close your eyes as your breathing harmonizes with his. All is still, yet gently moving. Perfect for a moment.

Your eyes flash open and your heart skips a beat.

"You'll be here tomorrow?"

He yawns and squeezes your hand. 

"Mm. Like hell I will. Go back to sleep."

_And so you do._


End file.
